


Miracle

by bravinto



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: (sorta) - Freeform, Belly Kink, Belly Rubs, Christmas, College era, Fluff, M/M, Queerplatonic Relationships, Sleepy Cuddles, Stuffing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-20
Updated: 2016-08-20
Packaged: 2018-08-10 00:50:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7823752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bravinto/pseuds/bravinto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Foggy sighs in his sleep; it’s a small, wistful sound. What is he dreaming of, Matt wonders as he burrows closer. The faint remnants of his own forgotten dream disperse and leave him feeling restless and lonely. He wraps his arms tighter around Foggy.</i><br/> </p><p>Matt wakes up in the middle of the night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Miracle

**Author's Note:**

> This has zero plot or nutritional value, it's pure sugary fluff.

 

Matt wakes up in the middle of the night. He doesn’t know for sure, because checking the time would disturb Foggy, but it must be three or four in the morning. The Nelsons are all deep in slumber, their old funny, fuzzy terrier mix Penguin kicks a little in his small bed on the floor, then stills. Foggy sighs in his sleep; it’s a small, wistful sound. What is he dreaming of, Matt wonders as he burrows closer. The faint remnants of his own forgotten dream disperse and leave him feeling restless and lonely. He wraps his arms tighter around Foggy.

He widens his focus, from Foggy’s heartbeat to embrace the room. Then the whole apartment, then beyond it. Foggy’s mother snores softly, the little spoon in her husband’s arms. Candace sleeps in the living room, her legs sticking from under the blanket - it’s always warmer there, that’s why she called dibs on it. Matt was happy to be exiled to Foggy’s old room with an air mattress abandoned on the floor in favor of sharing Foggy’s bed: still small, but slightly wider and comfier than their dorm twin beds.

 

Hell’s Kitchen is quiet. Maybe it’s because it is Christmas night; but it has never been an excuse before, the city never sleeps, not really, the holy night or not. The night was always full of sirens and shouts and fights, and it wasn’t easy to find comfort and miracle in it. No, the silence is different, as if muffled. He can barely hear the murmured conversation someone is having on the phone in a language Matt doesn’t understand even though it’s just across the street. The sound comes dampened, faded; and it takes several moments to place it, the thick wall of white noise, the cold airy quality to it, the crystalline tinkle of individual flakes falling together. It’s snowing, hard. Foggy will be happy, Matt thinks, moving his head just a little, to press his face closer to the soft cotton fabric of a worn T-shirt Foggy put on for bed.

It smells clean but a little stale, like it was washed and ironed awhile back and then put away for months. Foggy must have pulled it out of a drawer when they came here. Most of all, it smells of Foggy, because everything here does. His room, his clothes, his home. His bed, with all the sleepy warmth kept under the blankets.

 

Last Christmas, Matt remembers with a smile, was something of a minor disaster. It was his first Christmas at Nelsons’, Foggy dragged him here after what he referred to as “Thanksgiving Blues”. Matt didn’t want to impose, and Foggy’s protests that no, this wouldn’t be imposing, did little to convince him; but as soon as he entered the apartment Mrs. and Mr. Nelson lived in, he understood what Foggy meant when he said, “Nah, it’s impossible to impose on a Nelson, or highly improbable, at the very least”. Here, in Foggy’s home, it felt that things were easier, somehow.

 

As soon as they arrived and settled, Foggy got roped into holiday preparations along with his whole family. Matt was worried he’d feel like an odd one out, but then Mr. Nelson - a large, calm man with a voice very similar to Foggy’s, who doesn’t insist (but prefers) to be called Edward, asked for his help with untangling cords and setting up tv and music.

“So,” he said, a little ominously, “how come that someone born and raised in Hell’s Kitchen has never heard of our hardware store?”

 Matt laughed. It wasn’t going to be the talk he was afraid of.

“Foggy called me an impostor when he found out.”

They talked about the city and how life had been, and yeah, maybe Matt was being probed, but he didn’t feel any judgement from Foggy’s father, and he felt pretty comfortable around him by the time the kitchen smells grew strong and the rest of the family flooded the living room.

 

The cheer could have been overwhelming, but the dinner got there first: Matt wasn’t used to eating that much food, and soon after they’d retired for the night he got the worst case of indigestion he could remember. It wasn’t that the food was bad, quite the opposite - it was so good that he just couldn’t stop himself. Naturally, his stomach rebelled. A very concerned Foggy found him in misery on the bathroom floor when he didn’t return to bed after half an hour.

“Hey buddy, you okay?”

“Uh, I guess I overdid it at dinner…”

“Okay…” Foggy crouched next to him and gently rubbed his back. “So, how bad is it? Should I call an ambulance? Or the police so that they arrest Mom for poisoning you?”

 Matt couldn’t help snickering despite pain and nausea.

“No, Foggy, I’m fine, I just need to wait till it’s over on it’s own,” he leaned into the touch a little. “Please don’t wake anybody.”

 The idea of causing this sort of embarrassing incident the first day he met Foggy’s family was mortifying. Thankfully, Foggy agreed to keep it quiet.

 “Come to the kitchen, when you’re done in here. It’s to the left,” he said and stood up with a parting pat on Matt’s shoulder. “I’ll go see if Mom still keeps meds on the same shelf. I’ll find some tummy stuff for you.”

 

Matt spent the night running between the kitchen and the bathroom and didn’t get much sleep. When Foggy’s parents learned about the incident in the morning (it turned out to be impossible to conceal), Matt expected an awkward situation, but all what happened was, Foggy and Mrs. Nelson made a blanket nest in the corner of the living room sofa where he was deposited and told to rest for the day. They didn’t let him go to Mass, but, he thought as he kept nodding off, they were probably right.

 In the end, he decided, it was for the best that he spent the most of the Christmas day curled on that sofa, otherwise the festivities might have gotten too overwhelming once the extended family arrived. Foggy hadn’t exaggerated when he’d talked about how loud the Nelsons could get. Thankfully, the extra cheer only came rolling his way every once in a while, when some of the relatives would gravitate towards him to chat. Foggy checked on him from time to time, and brought him porridge and other easily digestible foods. Closer to the evening a couple of tired toddlers fell asleep on the cushions next to Matt, and he realized he didn’t mind at all. He just dozed alongside, to the ambient noise of the Nelson household.

 

This time he came prepared. Foggy made it his personal quest to make sure Matt could handle the dinners at Nelsons’ without trouble.

 “We failed you once, my friend, but it won’t happen again!” he exclaimed at lunch, mounting extra dumplings onto Matt’s plate when they’d returned to college. “By the end of the semester you’ll grow some meat on those bones of yours, and in twelve months you might even be able to challenge me to an eating contest!”

It didn’t get quite that extreme, but Foggy did feed him well; and even though it was a little strange at first, Matt quickly grew used to being cared for, and enjoyed it.

He met Foggy’s family several times during the year, and his apprehension died down; this time, when he entered the turkey-and-potato smelling apartment, he felt that, if only for a little while, he belonged.

 

They went to bed early, everybody sleepy and ready for the holiday break, full of the delicious meal and good laughter. Matt felt full, too, in a pleasant, warm way. He put on his pajamas and sat on the edge of the bed; Foggy, who’d already lied down, took him by the arm and pulled down to rest beside him, like it was the easiest, most natural thing to do.

 “Stop playing with your phone,” Matt said. “Let’s sleep.”

 “I gotta wish folks a Merry Christmas, buddy. Alright, alright, done. Will you turn off the lights?”

 “I’m not getting up,” Matt grinned at Foggy’s exasperated sigh.

 “You’re closer to the edge, that’s fair!”

 “Maybe, but what’s in it for me?”

 “Ugh. Okay, gimme a slipper. Thanks. Now, with a masterful twist of my hand...” Foggy tossed the slipper across the room, an inch off the aim, and it hit the wall with a loud thud. “...I miss the switch. Gimme the other slipper. There, better. The light’s off.”

 

They settled down, pressed close in the small bed. Matt let himself drift, comfortable in the cozy crook of Foggy’s arm. Several minutes passed in silence, then he felt Foggy sigh.

 “I’m too full to sleep.”

 “Sorry, pal. I know how that feels. You’re not gonna throw up?”

 “Nah. But I want a belly rub?”

 Matt turned towards him and rubbed his stomach gently through the thin material of the T-shirt. He pressed his palm down a little, feeling the pressure inside. It wasn’t like working out a knot in a muscle, but he could soothe some tension with the right movements.

 “Tell me if it hurts,” he asked.

 “What do you mean, it feels terrific,” Foggy sighed.

 Matt massaged him for a bit longer, rubbing at the strain and some trapped gas, until Foggy’s breathing began to even out, his body relaxed, and he went to the peaceful sleep.

 

Matt has woken up with his hand still resting there, where he kept petting Foggy’s stomach before he fell asleep, too.  He loves Foggy’s belly; just like his chest, it holds so much of his life. The cage of Foggy’s ribs embraces and protects his breath and his pulse, his steady rhythm; his voice and his warm, sunshiny laughter, the unique cadence of his being that Matt is so attuned to. Foggy’s belly holds his energy and his bravery, his warmth and love; and it feels so… vulnerable when Matt ghosts his hand down Foggy’s belly, careful not to wake him. He listens to the quiet murmur of the organs inside, all the fine workpieces of the intricate machinery that move tirelessly together to keep the miracle happening. It all says: Foggy lives. Foggy lives in this world, and Matt somehow got lucky enough to be so close.

 

He can feel Foggy stir, his sleep getting shallower, until eventually  he’s awake. Matt makes an inquisitive noise.

 “‘Rsty..” Foggy croaks, then clears his throat. “Water?”

 His voice is crunchy and thick with sleep. Matt reaches over to the table and grabs a glass left there; and Foggy is way too sleepy to question how he found it so easily. They help each other up and share the water, then settle back down.

 “What time is it?” Foggy asks.

 “Too early,” Matt says.

 “Did I wake you?”

 “No, I was awake.”

 “You’re not vomiting, are you?” Foggy asks, smiling.

 “Nah, no vomiting. You?”

 “I’m good,” Foggy says, and the rhythmic thrum of his body concurs.

 

They decide to swap places while they’re at it: Foggy’s arm has fallen asleep, and Matt’s side has grown numb. Foggy bends his elbow several times with a pained hiss and climbs over Matt, pressing him into the mattress for a moment. It’s a good, steadying feeling.

 “Sorry if I squished you,” Foggy mutters, settling on the other side of the bed.

 “‘S alright,” Matt whispers.

 It’s even cozier here, between Foggy’s warm side and the wall. It’s not cold in the room, the noisy space heater is doing its job, but Matt reaches out to wrap the blanket tighter around them. He rests his head on Foggy’s shoulder and listens.

 The night is quiet, the snow is still falling. Everybody is asleep, and Foggy is dozing off again. Matt closes his eyes and thinks, thank you. Thank you for leading me here, letting me know him. Thank you and keep him safe from harm and evil. Thank you for the miracle.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I've realized I didn't know all that much about Christmas traditions... also, this is unbeta-ed, so feel free to point out my typos and mistakes. If anyone would like to help out a non-native speaker with beta-reading of my future works, I'd be really grateful <3


End file.
